What are university administrators doing to secure their students?

Security is now a top concern for all university and college administrators. It is not just the usual routine check of all entrants into the campus each day. It is much beyond the ordinary and peremptory entrance and exit control. The terrorists have targeted the educational institutions as potential victims of bombings, especially those where the sons and daughters of high-profile politicians and businessmen are studying, and with special focus and priority on schools with foreign students. Those who are managing schools, whether public or private, should now triple if not quadruple their security initiatives and efforts.

Every insider in the university and college is a potential recruit of the Jemaah Islamiya or the CPP-NPA-NDF. The school administration should review the profile of every student, faculty, and non-teaching personnel. The security chief of each institution should take full responsibility in studying the background of every school stakeholder, whether student, faculty, non-teaching personnel, outside service provider, including janitorial, maintenance, and messengerial personnel. He should conduct a random interview of suspected bombers and terrorists. He should be personally and officially accountable for every single breach of security protocol.

The Board of Trustees should review the university or college security plan and protocol, and should revise it and give it more stress and some sense of urgency and top focus. The vice presidents for administration and academic affairs, as well as those who are in-charge of student affairs and welfare should keep themselves busy in helping the chief security official to give impetus to prevention of all terror activities inside the campus. There should be a strong linkage between the school security authorities and the local police forces and barangay officials.

There should be a series of security briefings for both employees and students, faculty and administrators. The students must be made aware of all threats looming around. Entrances and exits must be controlled and CCTV cameras should be all over the place. Suspicious personalities should be held at bay and should not be allowed to enter, and if they are already inside, the security forces should have a quick reaction team to detect, apprehend, and isolate the threat. There should be non-uniformed security operatives who shall always be roving around, and constant inspection of all rooms and nooks and crannies should be done every hour.

We are entrusting our children to the school and if we are not convinced that the administrators are not doing their job well, we should transfer our loved ones to more deserving institutions. Lives and security can never be compromised.